Seattle Information Technology

Today, the Seattle Information Technology department released the following statement regarding city emails that were inadvertently released through the public disclosure process:

On September 1, 2017 the City of Seattle discovered that portions of certain emails were inadvertently released to a single individual in response to a public disclosure request (PDR). Upon learning about this error from the PDR requester directly, the City of Seattle took steps to work with the individual who received the information and confirmed the records were securely destroyed. Additionally, the individual also confirmed that he had not and would not use, share, transfer or discuss the files.

The disclosure included email header information such as “To:”, “From:”, “CC:”, “BCC”, “Date”, “Time” and the first 255 characters of each email subject and message body of all City emails exchanged between January 1, 2017 and February 17, 2017, as well as emails exchanged between March 30, 2017 and April 4, 2017.

The City of Seattle takes seriously its obligation to protect the privacy of City residents and employees. The City has initiated a project to assess its public disclosure and records management policies, and implement new ones that would prevent an issue like this from occurring in the future.

FAQ regarding statement on public disclosure request release

What happened?

On September 1, 2017 the City of Seattle discovered that a portion of emails sent to/from City employees between January 1, 2017 and February 17, 2017, and March 30, 2017 and April 4, 2017, were inadvertently released to a single individual in response to a public records request. Specifically, the disclosure included email header information, such as “To” and “From” fields, as well as the first 255 characters of each email subject and message body.

Upon discovery, City staff worked with the individual who inadvertently received the email data and confirmed that he did not and will not use the information, and has securely destroyed the records.

This was NOT a breach of any City database that manages personal identifiers, financial information, or other sensitive data.

The City of Seattle takes seriously its obligation to protect the privacy of City residents and employees while meeting its obligations under the Washington State Public Records Act. The City has initiated a project to assess its public disclosure and records management policies, and implement improvements that would prevent an issue like this from occurring in the future.

Is the issue resolved?

Yes, the City worked with the recipient to confirm that he has not used or shared the email and that it has been securely destroyed. The City is also reviewing its procedures and protocols for responding to public disclosure requests, and making changes to those policies and procedures to reduce the likelihood that this situation happens again.

Are my emails exchanged with the City at risk?

No. The City has worked with the recipient to confirm that the emails were securely destroyed.

Was the City hacked?

No, these records were requested properly through the public disclosure process. An inadvertent error resulted in the requester receiving more information than was intended to have been released.

Who and how many people are affected?

The information released included all emails sent to or from City email addresses during the time period 1/1/2017 and 2/17/2017, and 3/30/2017 and 4/4/2017.

What emails did the requestor receive?

Portions of emails exchanged with the City during the time period January 1, 2017 and February 17, 2017, and March 30, 2017 and April 4, 2017. The email information disclosed included the following: “To,” “From,” “CC,” “BCC,” “Date,” “Time,” and the first 255 characters of the email subject line and message body.

Why does the City provide records to the public?

The Washington State Public Records Act (PRA) requires that all public records maintained by state and local agencies be made available to all members of the public, with very narrow statutory exemptions. A public record is defined in RCW 42.56.010(3) as any writing that is prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local government agency, and which contains information that relates to the conduct of government, or the performance of any governmental or proprietary function. The term “writing” is broadly defined in the PRA, to include not only traditional written records, but also photos, maps, videos, voicemails, emails, text messages and tweets (RCW 42.56.010(4)). For example, email sent by individuals to government email addresses are generally public records and thus disclosable.

Individuals may request documents, emails, and other types of records by contacting public agencies and governments, including the City of Seattle.

Public disclosure laws were enacted in the interest of government transparency. They provide the public with a means of asking for government records and information that may affect them. Under this law, members of the public may request electronic and paper copies of most City records, with a few exceptions.

What steps should I take?

Because the City has worked with the recipient to confirm that the email was securely destroyed, the City does not believe that there are additional actions to take at this time.

The City for All hackathon was a big civic hit over the weekend. Nine teams competed for recognition and prizes at City Hall’s Bertha Knight Landes room. The theme of the hackathon was to find solutions for the challenges of aging and accessibility. The winner for Best Overall Innovation was the Pandora for Streets/Smellevation Maps team which addressed several of the eight domains of livability in a single app. The app would also include paths in Seattle that present the best smells, sounds, views, and hills. Users can rank how important each aspect is to improve the algorithms of the app. The winner of Best Accessibility Hack was GoInfo Game which gamified the collection of bus stop information that’s crucial for disabled riders. The Winner of Best Use of Open Data and and Best Data Visualization was SeaSidewalks which developed a visualization of data from SDOT’s recent Citywide sidewalk analysis. The team came up with a mechanism for prioritizing sidewalk issues based on factors like proximity to hospitals and other key facilities.

Here’s a complete list of the results and links to team projects:

Team Pandora for Streets won Best Overall Innovation with a map to generate better pedestrian experiences. It aims to crowdsource information not typically considered when evaluating the urban environment with data – such as noises and smells – in addition to mapping elements such as tree canopy and points of interest from 10 sources of open data from the city, county, and federal government.

Team Reflect & Connect was runner-up for Best Overall Innovation. It used the magic of technology to transform written or spoken journal entries into suggested free activities in the city, with the goal of helping people overcome loneliness and social isolation.

Team SeaSidewalks won in two categories: Best Use of Open Data and Best Data Visualization. The tool visualizes data from Seattle Department of Transportation’s recent sidewalk assessment, prioritizing issues as well as points of interest, such as medical facilities, and demographics, to help the Department make the best use of its limited sidewalk repair budget. It can be viewed at https://gngu.shinyapps.io/seattle_sidewalks/.

Team GoInfo Game won Best Accessibility Hack with a tool that gamifies crowdsourcing of bus stop data that’s critical for disabled and/or older riders, then makes that data available for use in other tools. The source code is available at https://github.com/opensidewalks/goinfogame.

In preparation for the City for All hackathon where data scientists will look at long-term solutions to answering the question, “how can the City contribute to health, longevity, and a vibrant life?” – four City departments – Human Services Department, Parks, Office of Housing and Seattle IT – have released new open datasets. Together they contain nearlytwo million rows of public data that show what kinds of programs and services the City provides and who takes advantage of them.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released data about the demographics of Seattle in relation to age, ethnicity, and economic status. You can find that in a SharePoint folder here. The folder also includes data from Sound Generations about its Meals on Wheels program and tables from the most recent Decennial Census and 5-year American Community Survey that cross-tabulate age by an array of characteristics including household size, race, language spoken, income level, car ownership, and disability status. All of the tables are easily mappable and are provided at the census tract level, with some going down to finer geographic levels.

These data visualizations shed light on demographics, aging, and health in our city:

Special thanks to all the data owners and Open Data Champions for making this possible in their departments, and to the Open Data and Privacy teams for their hard work to release this data in time for this weekend’s hackathon.

Hackathon teams will present their solutions on Sunday, September 24 at 2 p.m.to a panel of judges from AARP, Impact Hub Seattle, Microsoft Accessibility, Socrata, Sound Generations, Tableau, and the Age-Friendly Seattle Initiative. Teams will compete for recognition in four categories: Best Overall Innovation, Best Data Visualization, Best Accessibility Hack, and Best Use of Open Data.

Big honors were given out to Seattle IT at this year’s annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) which took place in Seattle in September. The Digital Engagement Team was honored with two awards. Seattle IT’s Strategic Plan for Facilitating Equitable Access to Wireless Broadband was awarded the 2017 Community Broadband Strategic Plan of the Year. The Technology Matching Fund was awarded the 2017 Community Broadband Digital Equity Project of the Year.

Seattle Channel was named among the best municipal television stations in the nation when it received the prestigious Excellence in Government Programming along with eight other programming awards, including five first-place wins for programming.

Also recognized at the NATOA conference was Tony Perez, director of Seattle’s Office of Cable Communications. Perez, immediate past president and longtime member of NATOA’s Board of Directors, received NATOA’s 2017 Member of the Year award for his contributions to the field, including his leadership, policy development and strategic advice to ensure that communities benefit from the transformational nature of broadband technology.

NATOA is a national association representing the needs and interests of local governments in the areas of communications, broadband and technology. NATOA’s annual government programming awards honor excellence in broadcast, cable, multimedia and electronic programming produced by local government agencies. This year, NATOA received more than 900 entries submitted in 65 categories by local governments across the country.

Earlier this year, we redesigned our open data portal and wrote a blog post at that time outlining the updates we made and the rationale behind them. In that blog post, we spoke to some of the related work we would be doing regarding making improvements to the metadata of our datasets.

As part of that work, Nina Showell who is a Masters Candidate from UW iSchool, spent 10 weeks over this summer working within the Open Data team as part of an Open Data Literacy (ODL) project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Over the course of her internship, Nina developed a “Policy Analysis of Civic Metadata Standards and Implications for the City of Seattle Open Data Program” (available here). In this report, she analyzed the work of seven cities who were some of the original pioneers in the US municipal open data movement (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle) and their usage of civic metadata standards.

Focusing specifically on the Seattle Open Data program, she developed a set of key recommendations based on our current usage of civic metadata standards, and how we might implement those within our Open Data program in the future. We expect to include some work streams related to these metadata recommendations into our 2018 Open Data Plan.

Nina also wrote a series of blog posts charting the progress of her work over the 10 weeks, which you can access here.

In the coming months, we in the Open Data team will blog about the ongoing work we’ve been doing regarding metadata improvements within our existing datasets on our open data platform. Again, Nina’s work will help inform some of our decision making regarding this project.

In closing, we would like to thank Nina for her fantastic contributions to our Open Data program this summer, and her project sponsor Prof. Nic Weber from the UW iSchool. Additionally, we would like to thank the staff from the cities of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco who very kindly and generously provided us with fantastic insights into their usage of civic metadata standards and helped shaped this report.

Seattle IT Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller joined leaders from three other major cities to fight for #NetNeutrality. The four leaders gathered in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to discuss concern over the federal government’s handling of a trio of issues including Internet privacy, local authority of public assets, and a potential rollback of net neutrality, which all four leaders oppose.

On Thursday, September 8, Mattmiller, along with New York City CTO Miguel Gamino, San Francisco CIO Linda Gerull, and Austin CIO Stephen Elkins, met with staff from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA who are the minority leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House. They also met with staff from the Senate Committee of Commerce, Science and Transportation chair, among others.

The four leaders are opposed to slowing down access speeds or forcing consumers and companies to pay more for faster connections or certain types of content. A letter was presenting in meeting in support of FCC net neutrality rules that is signed by 65 bipartisan mayors representing more than 26 million residents.

Seattle Channel was named among the best municipal television stations in the nation when it received the prestigious Excellence in Government Programming award last night from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), which held its annual national conference in Seattle this week.

Additionally, the city-operated TV station won nine government programming awards, including five first-place wins for programming.

NATOA is a national association representing the needs and interests of local governments in the areas of communications, broadband and technology. NATOA’s annual government programming awards honor excellence in broadcast, cable, multimedia and electronic programming produced by local government agencies. This year, NATOA received more than 900 entries submitted in 65 categories by local governments across the country.

“I congratulate the Seattle Channel staff on its dedication to the station’s continued excellence. Everyone on our talented team shares in these awards,” said Shannon Gee, Seattle Channel interim general manager. “Through in-depth programming we strive to provide transparency in city government and deepen understanding of local issues, our changing city and its diverse communities.”

This is Seattle Channel’s eighth NATOA win in the past decade for programming excellence. Seattle Channel competed against other government-access TV stations in large U.S. cities. The station was recognized with the top government-programming award in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Seattle Channel won first-place awards for CityStream, a feature magazine show; a special on aging in Seattle; and a story about a Boy Scout troop for youth with special needs. The station also took the top spot in the video journalism category and won in the public health category for a CityStream show with a focus on health resources, from fighting the opioid epidemic to extreme sports therapy.

In July, NATOA also recognized the Seattle Information Technology department (of which Seattle Channel is a part) with two national awards for digital equity. Seattle IT’s Strategic Plan for Facilitating Equitable Access to Wireless Broadband was awarded the 2017 Community Broadband Strategic Plan of the Year. The Technology Matching Fund was awarded the 2017 Community Broadband Digital Equity Project of the Year. The Community Broadband Awards recognize and highlight the efforts to bring the benefits of technology to communities across the country.

“Our staff is committed to making Seattle a more digitally equitable community and to building strong, engaged and inspired communities through compelling programming,” said Seattle’s Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller. “It’s an honor to receive this recognition from our national peers in local government.”

Also recognized at the NATOA conference was Tony Perez, director of Seattle’s Office of Cable Communications. Perez, immediate past president and longtime member of NATOA’s Board of Directors, received NATOA’s 2017 Member of the Year award for his contributions to the field, including his leadership, policy development and strategic advice to ensure that communities benefit from the transformational nature of broadband technology.

Ed Escalona, Seattle Channel’s production manager, received a 2017 Ovation Award for his production contributions to NATOA’s annual meeting held in Seattle.

The City of Seattle invites data scientists, developers, designers, urban planners, and anyone with an interest in aging and accessibility to A City for All hackathon September 22-24. At the event, teams will have an opportunity to work together to address issues affecting the young and old of all abilities in our community. The event, which is organized by City of Seattle’s Information Technology Department (Seattle IT) as part of the Age-Friendly Seattle Initiative and the National Day of Civic Hacking, will take place in the Bertha Knight Landes Room in City Hall.

“Our city is made better every day by the ingenuity and compassion of our community members,” said Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller. “By bringing together technology innovators with experts on what makes a community age-friendly, we can imagine new ways to improve quality of life for residents of all ages and abilities.”

As part of the hackathon, the City is preparing to release several new open datasets that offer insights into how the City supports residents as they age. These include information on the Aging and Disability Services from the Human Services Department, data on participation in the Parks Department’s Lifelong Recreation, and usage of homeowner assistance programs from the Office of Housing. Expert mentors from across City departments and local nonprofits will be on-site to guide teams as they begin to design their solutions on Friday evening.

“As a City government, we are committed to transparency and community engagement as we work to solve our shared problems,” said Jim Loter, Seattle IT’s director of digital engagement. “By providing new open datasets and offering expert insights from City staff across departments, we open up the potential for the community to be directly involved in designing solutions.”

The event will kick off on Friday, September 22 with opening remarks from City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, who chairs the Human Service and Public Health Committee and introduced the Age-Friendly Seattle resolution. Her welcome will be followed by lightning talks from experts across the city to provide context for the hackathon’s goals and spark innovative ways of thinking about the role of technology. This part of the event is open to all members of the public who want to learn more about age-friendly cities.

Teams will compete for recognition in four categories: Best Overall Innovation, Best Data Visualization, Best Accessibility Hack, and Best Use of Open Data. They will present their solutions on Sunday, September 24 at 2 p.m. to a panel of judges from AARP, Impact Hub Seattle, Microsoft Accessibility, Socrata, Tableau, and the Age-Friendly Seattle Initiative. Members of the public are invited to reserve tickets for the opening talks on Friday as well as the final presentations on Sunday.

“This is an area of civic life that is ripe for innovation,” said Candace Faber, the City of Seattle’s civic technology advocate. “Globally, people are living longer than ever and in unprecedented circumstances. I think our community will be inspired by the speakers and mentors to create solutions that could impact millions of lives.”

This event is being produced by the City of Seattle’s Civic Technology Program, a division of Seattle IT in partnership with the City’s Human Services Department, Seattle Department of Transportation, Office of Planning and Community Development, and Parks and Recreation; the University of Washington’s Health Promotion Research Center, Healthy Brain Research Network, and Urban@UW; as well as LeadingAge Washington, Thriving Communities Network, West Seattle Timebank, King County Mobility Coalition, King County Public Health, Microsoft Accessibility, Sound Generations, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

When Seattle IT’s Shelly Smith got lost on her way to a meeting in Magnuson Park, she pulled out her phone’s navigation app and found there was not enough information to guide her to where she needed to be. She’d heard of Google advertising their Trekker cameras and thought it might be a good way to map out the park.

“It was also about accessibility, public safety, and providing the technology to the public for their benefit,” said Smith.

Teams of two from Seattle Parks and Seattle IT mounted 50-pound top-heavy camera packs provided by Google and walked several trails, paths, and parkways in the Puget Sound. The result is a series of virtual park tours that will give potential visitors a 360-degree view of each of the places trekkers visited.

“I think it’s great that people can now see parks before they go,” said Seattle IT’s Beth Somerfield. “It also gives them something to reference on their phone if they get lost in the woods.”

More than a dozen local parks including Kuboto Garden and Woodland Park Rose Garden can now be taken in with the click of a mouse. Smith says the public was very responsive to the teams as they headed out with the Google cameras.

“We looked like rockets that were going into outer space,” said Smith. “But people loved it. They stopped and posed for photos with us.”

No plans to use the cameras in the future, but Smith sees this as a huge potential for future use. Seattle IT trekkers included Shelly Smith and Beth Somerfield, part of the Digital Services team as well as Corinne Erly and Amie Thao.

The Seattle City Council today, August 7, voted unanimously to award $430,000 in Technology Matching Funds to 15 local organizations. Technology Matching Fund projects are part of the City’s Digital Equity Initiative that works to increase connectivity, digital skills training, and provides devices and technology support.

“We are committed to closing the digital divide in Seattle by making devices, internet access, and technology knowledge available on a more equitable basis,” said Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller. “These funds help support vital programs that strengthen community partnerships.”

“This is an investment in our community that empowers our residents with digital skills and access,” said Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell. “We work every year to close the equity gap and these community technology projects are vital in bringing us closer to our goal of ensuring digital equity and opportunity for all residents.”

This year, the funds will help more than 6,000 residents in underserved or underrepresented communities, including immigrant and refugee communities, seniors, and people with disabilities.

“We were thrilled to receive Technology Matching Funds this year,” said Coalition for Refugees from Burma Youth Program Manager Siobhan Whalen. “It’s really important for our organization to continue to invest time and engage our resources into building the technology skills of our community.” The Coalition for Refugees from Burma will purchase a fleet of laptops to help parents who recently immigrated learn computer skills.

The Technology Matching Fund provides up to $50,000 of City funds that are matched by the community’s contribution of volunteer labor, materials, professional services, or cash. This year, Facebook also contributed $25,000 to Technology Matching Fund.

“Facebook is thrilled to support Seattle’s Digital Equity Initiative and the effort to connect and empower communities across the city,” said Facebook Public Policy Manager Amy Hirotaka.

“Receiving this funding gives us the opportunity to expand our program that was already helping immigrant mothers build their computer skills,” said Grants Manager Consuelo Echeverria for Somali Family Safety Task Force. “The laptops we’ll purchase will triple the time these women can spend in a computer lab each week. We’ll also be able to hire college students from the Somali community to teach them.”

The 2017 Technology Matching Fund award recipients and their projects:

Coalition for Refugees from Burma: Nexus DigiLab for Parent-School Engagement

Education for All: Digital Citizenship and Communication Project

Ethiopian Community in Seattle: ECS Digital Equity Project

Full Life Care: Technology Access Enhancement Project

Horn of Africa Services: Enhancing East Africans’ Access to Technology

Kin on Community Health Care: Expanding the Senior-friendly Kin on SmartLab

LaunchCode: LC101 Seattle: Training for Technology Jobs

Boys & Girls Club of King County, North Seattle Club: Wallingford Boys & Girls Club Technology Update

The Community Technology Advisory Board selected this year’s recipients from an applicant pool of 36. Technology Matching Fund is celebrating 20 years of supporting the community’s efforts to increase a technology-healthy city.

To learn more about the City of Seattle’s commitment to Digital Equity and the Technology Matching Fund, visit www.seattle.gov/tech/initiatives/digital-equity.